Bridge connected with death
This series of print was created along with the exhibition titled “The Dividing Bridge” held at NANZUKA UNDERGROUND in November 2011. As the word “bridge” is in the title of the work, the motif of bridge is included in all of the print. For Tanaami, bridge was a place connected with death. As a child, Tanaami had seen the severed hung along the drum bridge in a movie and dead bodies along the drum bridge during a nighttime air raid in WW II. Since then, he had a strong interest in the mystery of the bridge as the cross point bridging this world and the other world, afterworld. The space beneath the bridge was also believed to belong to another world, separate from reality, an alien world removed from every order, system and institution. That space was a spot for hiding dead bodies and a secret gathering place for prostitutes. Brooding lovers, as an extreme breakup at the end of much languish, would throw themselves from bridge railings in miserable double suicides. Death was always strongly related to bridge and this is a distinct feature of the bridge in Japan. Tanaami himself faced death for several times through war and heavy disease. And that is why you can see many motifs related with death in these prints.

Bridge also must be a place where death and life meet.
Tanaami commented about his thoughts about bridge as below;
“For me, the profound and mystical world of the bridge poses a complex, haunting riddle. If the bridge is what separates this world from the afterworld, the border between the mundane and the divine, it must also be a place of meeting. Who is singing that song, faintly echoing from the other side of the bridge? I want to find out. I will always be intrigued by the infinite darkness that spreads out quietly beneath the bridge, the bottomless mystery hidden within that mystical, strange space.”

Strong color printed with Neo silk
One of the feature of Tanaami’s artwork is its strong vivid color. The color itself gives us strong energy. Although the motifs are scary and horror, the coloration free us from fear. This artwork is not replicated from a painting and is created only for this print series. Tanaami first collaged each motif on a large paper and put color on each parts like a coloring. The print was made by the method called Neo silk. Neo slik is a technique using giclee print (high technological digital print,?know more on wiki) to print the color part, then covered with silk screen print and crushed glasses which made the print sparkling on some parts. Series 1 is in one color, while series 2 and 3, 4 and 5 are in different colors with same image.